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Newslinks (07.09.2006)

Ignored ants ruin man's assets
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-07 08:51

A Shenzhen resident surnamed Chen recently regretted refusing to spend a little money to get rid of white ants, after they seriously damaged more than 100 cake-shaped teas that had been preserved for more than 20 years.

Chen, a tea businessman, purchased the special cake-shaped Pu'er teas from Southwest China's Yunnan Province two decades ago and stored them at home to wait for better prices.

But this week, he found that all the teas had been seriously damaged by the ants. Chen said the direct economic loss was more than 1 million yuan (US$125,000).

Southern Metropolis News

Pu-Er Healthy Notes

Fermented tea eyed as natural preservative source

By staff reporter

16-Oct-2007 - Tea, seemingly always in the headlines for its potential health benefits, could also offer an interesting source of food preservatives, Chinese researchers report.

Extracts from microbially-fermented Puer tea and Fuzhuan brick-tea have the potential to inhibit several food-borne bacteria, including Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium sporogenes.

"With the trend of increasing use of natural and biological preservatives in food products, natural antimicrobial agents from microbial fermented tea may offer an innovative and interesting measure for such applications," wrote lead author Haizhen Mo from Henan Institute of Science and Technology.

Before such a resource can be tapped however the researchers state that several critical aspects still need to be clarified before the tea extracts can be industrialised as alternatives to synthetic preservatives such as like butylhydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylhydroxytoluene (BHT) to slow down the oxidative deterioration of food.

Suspicion over chemical-derived synthetic preservatives has pushed food makers to source natural preservatives such as rosemary extract instead, and market analysts Global Information pitch the global food preservative market at €422.7bn ($575bn), reaching €522bn ($710bn) by 2008.

Among the challenges left include identification of the exact components in the tea responsible for the antimicrobial effects. Indeed, Mo and co-authors ask whether it is the more well-known tea catechins or polyphenols or antimicrobial metabolites from the fermentation process not originally present in unfermented or green tea leaves that are responsible.

Another area in need of research is whether the antimicrobials could impact the flavour and nutritional aspects of the food products.

"These natural preservatives should be desirably colourless and tasteless so that they will not bring about any off flavour troubles," wrote the researchers.

"Ideally, these natural preservatives should not bring about any anti-nutritional effects," they added.

The process for fermentation also needs optimising, they said.

"[Both] Puer tea and Fuzhuan brick-tea… are produced through a solid state fermentation process, [and] standardisation and optimisation are necessary. Solid-state fermentation is described as a process where no free water is present.

"A standardised fermentation process will not only ensure food safety but also the product quality. 

"Furthermore, during the standardisation and optimisation of the process, more insight will be obtained for the metabolic mechanism of the fungi involved, how they produce antimicrobial metabolites and eventually an overproduction of these useful natural preservatives can be expected," they concluded.

The study was a collaboration with researchers from Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Source: Trends in Food Science & Technology (Elsevier)

Published on-line ahead of print, doi: 10.1016/j.tifs.2007.10.001

"Microbial fermented tea - a potential source of natural food preservatives"

Authors: H. Mo, Y. Zhu, Z. Chen

Newslinks (20.02.2008)

Wednesday February 20, 2008

Liquid asset
Like wine, pu-er tea ages well and the more mature the tea, the higher its price..

AT THE Pek Sin Choon tea company in Singapore’s Chinatown, a golden gift box with floral motifs is brought out.

The round, burnt-looking object inside is carefully taken out for a closer look.

The untrained eye can’t tell what it is. But show it to a tea collector and his heart will beat faster.

That is because the undistinguished looking thing is a valuable disc of pu-er tea from the 1930s. It has been in the family of Peh Ching Her, 39, the shop’s marketing manager, for many decades.

Chinese tea is not just a beverage to sip along with dim sumand bak kut teh. Pu-er tea, in particular, can be an investment.

He has more than 10 years’ experience dealing with tea and says he is not sure how his family got hold of it.

The pu-er is considered a rarity and is worth a fortune – about S$150,000 (RM345,000) he estimates – although he also adds that “it is definitely not for sale”.

The fragile disc is carefully returned to the box. If broken, it loses its value.

If you think Chinese tea is just a beverage to sip along with dim sum, think again. Pu-er tea, in particular, is seen as an investment.

Named after the Pu-er county in Yunnan province, China, the tea has a woody taste and is dark golden red in colour. It comes in various forms: disc-shaped cha bing or tea cakes, hump-shaped lumps or brick-like blocks. It is usually wrapped with paper and the name of the tea and date of manufacture stamped on it.

Because it is fermented, pu-er ages well, unlike other teas such as jasmine which lose their fragrance with time.

Carrie Chen, 38, owner of Tea Bone Zen Mind, a 14-year-old tea house in Seah Street, says the taste of pu-er gets milder with age, and the colour of the tea becomes more “shiny”.

Another tea master, Chen Lian Wei, 24, from Si Chuan Dou Hua Restaurant in Beach Road, adds that the taste and aroma of the tea improves as it matures, contributing to its value.

On the health front, aged pu-er is said to help lower high blood pressure and cholesterol, and some believe it can help with weight loss.

It’s no wonder then that pu-er is a collectible, and people can make a tidy sum from collecting discs of the tea.

In 2002, Peh was selling a disc of pu-er for S$6. He says that same disc is worth S$60 (RM138) today, as the tea has aged.

Similarly, Chen says a 20-year-old pu-er can be worth three times more than 10-year-old pu-er, which is selling for about S$80 (RM184) for a 250g disc.

Pu-er tea can last a long time, a century or more. The oldest pu-er is supposedly 200 years old and is considered an artefact.

Peh says whether or not collectors drink their aged pu-er depends on two factors.

“If they have more than a piece, and if they can afford it, they will drink it,” he says. Otherwise, most collectors tend to keep their pieces.

There are more than 10 grades of pu-er tea and the ones usually drunk now are those made during the 1980s.

As a rough guide, Si Chuan Dou Hua’s Chen says pu-er aged 30 years and above are stored and not drunk as they are expensive.

He says people began investing in the tea about 20 years ago in Taiwan. Then, goods could not be directly imported from China to Taiwan for political reasons.

“As such, traders could only bring in small quantities of pu-er from China to Taiwan through Hong Kong, making it more valuable,” he says.

In Singapore, pu-er collecting began in the mid-1990s. The tea experts say collectors here are mostly businessmen who prefer to keep a low profile, and collect only tea that is at least 30 years old.

But younger people are catching onto the trend, buying younger teas, he says.

The good news is you don’t have to be filthy rich to invest in pu-er. The younger teas cost between S$12 (RM27.60) and S$100 (RM230) a disc, depending on their quality.

Collectors should store them in a dark, dry and cool place, and be patient.

“You can buy pu-er when it is young and inexpensive, and sell it for a high price when it matures over time,” says Chen. – The Straits Times, Singapore / Asia News Network

Newslinks (24.08.2007)

The price spiral of Pu'er tea

2007-08-24 China Economic Net

By Yang Qingxin, Zhou Bin

In the first half of 2007, the dealers and producers of Pu'er tea once experienced the "switchback."

The Yunnan spring tea continuously increased from about RMB20 or 30 yuan per kilogram at the beginning of 2007 to RMB60 to 70 yuan universally. The "Pu'er Seven Cake Tea" costing around RMB30 yuan was priced at RMB300 yuan to RMB500 yuan. From this May, the price began to drop, now the "Pu'er Seven Cake Tea" priced at RMB500 yuan can hardly be sold out.

Since 2000, Yunnan Pu'er tea gradually became popular in China, together with the price increased successively. Is the Pu'er Tea price empty high?

From 2005, some people worried that the Pu'er Tea price was abnormally high; some tea plants thought the price was too high, and did not dare to purchase. Unexpectedly, the tea price remained high in 2006. In the spring tea-picking period of 2007, the tea price did not drop, but rapidly increased by one time instead in comparison with that of 2006. The purchase price of famous spring teas of the six major tea mountains in Yunnan even astoundingly increased to about one thousand of RMB per kilogram.

In the harvest season of spring tea in 2007, the reporter visited Lincang -- one of the producing areas of big-leaf teas in Yunnan. At the time, Lincang was holding the 2007 Lincang Tea Culture Fair; the trading market was crowded with people conducting business busily.

But after May, the Pu'er Tea price began to drop. The "wind vane" of Pu'er Tea -- Pu'er Seven Cake Tea 7542 (Item No.) of Menghai Tea Plant continuously declined from RMB 22,000 yuan per piece in the middle March to around RMB8, 500 yuan in July 25th. It is learned that the varieties suffered serious decline in price recently were mainly the famous brands taking 70 percent market share, e.g. Dayi, Xiaguan and Zhongcha, the second-class brands were not influenced too much.

Mr. Liu Qun, the General Manager of Yunnan Mingzhong Tea Co., Ltd., told us that the market price exerted little influence to second-line enterprises. Under the precondition of ensured quality, the enterprise may reduce cost by blending technology and produce products accepted by the market. In addition, tea production and sales are of seasonal characteristics, the high season lasts from each October to the next April, it is normal that the spring tea (from the Spring Festival to April 25th) is more expensive than the rain water tea (after May).

Pu'er Tea is old crude tea or processed tea made from big-leaf sundried green tea after pile-fermentation, aging, drying and molding processes. The processed tea after artificial pile-fermentation, aging, drying and molding usually is about 40 percent higher than the crude tea in the year in terms of cost.

Professor Shao Wanfang, the President of the Tea School of Yunnan University of Agriculture introduced the three main characteristics of Pu'er Tea: First is its unique producing area -- the drainage area of Lancangjiang River in Yunnan; Second is the unique raw material -- the big-leaf sundried green tea in Yunnan, which generates large amount of beneficial bio-enzyme in fermentation; Third is the unique processing technology. Usually mature Pu'er Tea should undergo several processes as de-enzyming, twisting, drying and pile-fermentation. Across China, only the Yunnan processed Pu'er Tea adopts such producing technology.

What is the reasonable price interval of Pu'er Tea?

Mr. Liu Qun said the Pu'er Tea price differentiated because of different producing area, the key factor was the quality, for example, the first spring tea was priced at RMB120 yuan per kilogram on Bulang Mountain, Xishuangbanna in the fastigium this year, now it had dropped to RMB100 yuan per kilogram, but the relevant costs of tea production kept increasing.

Pu'er Tea is an excellent variety among all kinds of teas. The successively increased price is attributed to its unique functions. Mr. Gu Hangqi, the General Manager of Kunming Pulan Hexiang Tea Co., Ltd., believed that there were some rationalities for Pu'er Tea to increase price, but the increase should be within a reasonable scope. From another perspective, the price increase of Pu'er Tea in recent years is attributed to the long-term underestimation of its actual value. By 2000, the famous teas as West Lake dragon well, Anxi Tiekwan-yin, Dongting Lake Biluochun have broken RMB 1,000 per kilogram, but the Pu'er Tea was priced at RMB10 yuan to RMB20 yuan per kilogram only. Its special producing area and unique processing technology determined its difference from other teas; its incomparable health care function, the character of more time more spicy and profound historical and cultural connotation determined its investment value. Green tea can only embody its maximum value in the first year, in the next year things will be different, but Pu'er Tea is totally the contrary. Therefore, Mr. Gu Hangqi believed that top-quality Pu'er Tea could continue to increase in terms of price from long-term perspective, but this increase should be stable. Considering the storage and other factors, the increase rate better remained around 20 percent each year in a period.

The idea of stable price increase was accepted by some tea businessman and tea sippers from Kunming Kangle Tea House. During the interview, some relevant personnel said that it was very astonishing that the price of new tea increased by several times in 2007 in comparison with the sales in previous years, but vicious publication of Pu'er Tea was desirable.

Mr. Yang Shanxi, the Director of Yunnan Provincial Tea Office said that the price fluctuation in the first half of 2007 could be attributed to the factor of season, but mainly the deliberate publication by the dealers. At present, the value return is a necessity of market adjustment. Mr. Yang said, "Pu'er Tea is a kind of popular drink, which cannot be promoted as a kind of investment." He revealed that Pu'er Tea was not scarce commodity, and the yield of Yunnan had reached around 80,000 tons in 2006. From now on, Yunnan Province would give priority to support the 36 counties with annual tea output above 500 tons, accelerate the planning and construction of modern tea garden and promote organic and pollution-free production technology, as well as strictly restrict the use of fertilizer and pesticide. By 2010, the pollution-free tea gardens will reach 3.5 million mu.

Newslinks (27.06.2007)

The bubble bursts for Pu'er tea

By Olivia Chung, 27 June 2007, Online Asia Times

HONG KONG - Because of "excessive liquidity", or too much cash in circulation and in people's hands, not only stocks and housing but some unusual commodities can easily become items for speculation in today's China. 

Pu'er tea, a fully fermented variety made from sun-dried leaves, has taken a roller-coaster ride since the beginning of this year. 

Pu'er tea is reputed to help people lose weight. Some people believe it can even prevent and cure cancer. 

Many kinds of Chinese tea are best for consumption when they are fresh. Pu'er tea is different. The longer is it properly stored, the better its quality and taste (and supposedly its curative properties). Hence the price of older Pu'er is higher than the fresh ones. Such features make Pu'er a potential item for speculation. 

The popularity in Pu'er tea has been on the rise in China since 2004, and the prices grew steadily until last year, with annual increases of 30%. 

"Since the beginning of this year, the price of Pu'er has soared, reaching its peak in May at 20 times higher than last year's price. In terms of returns, Pu'er is a better investment than stocks or gold, isn't it?" a tea collector in Guangzhou said. 

"In the first four months of this year, the price of Pu'er rose three- to fourfold. That included fresh Pu'er that was marketed only last October; its price grew by 80%, to 1,600 yuan per kilogram from 900 yuan," the man said. "So although the prices of the Pu'er tea dropped suddenly early this month, many still believe it's only a matter of time before interest in the tea becomes stronger again." 

Wu Xirui, secretary general of the Chinese Tea Circulation Association, said the soaring prices of Pu'er tea, with a focus on such brands as Dayi, Haihe and Xiaguan, are a result of rampant speculation. 

"The main speculators are dealers from Guangzhou and Beijing. Neither are tea production areas but they have large tea wholesale markets," he said. 

Huang Jianzhang, secretary general of the tea culture research committee of the Guangdong Culture Study Group, said the average price of Pu'er soared to 800 yuan (US$105) per kilogram now from 8 yuan in 2004, as tea producers and merchants have bought up large stocks and are hoarding them, giving a false impression of a shortage to push up the prices. 

"Some speculators inflate prices by placing dummy bids and organizing promotional events like the selection of a 'tea king' to bang the drum for the potential high value of Pu'er tea. Immediately after real buyers arrive, the sellers will sell out," he said. "Just like the market manipulators on the stock market, tea speculators 'stir-fry' the tea by buying and selling it in a very short period." 

Industry experts also attributed the skyrocketing price to excessive liquidity, one of the key factors that have supported a bull run in China's stock and housing markets. 

When people have too much money with too few few investment channels and are feeling the pressure of rising living costs, people hope to make quick profits by speculating on Pu'er. 

Meanwhile, the skyrocketing price has caused people chasing short-term profits to produce more and more Pu'er, most of which is of low quality. 

In Yunnan province, the major producer of Pu'er tea, more than 3,000 enterprises are producing the tea, but only 59 have quality safety certificates issued by the government. Some small individually owned enterprises producing low-quality tea sell fake brands. 

The Pu'er craze is cause for concern in the tea industry. Wang Qing, vice chairman of the Chinese Tea Circulation Association, said a bubble has formed in the Pu'er market. The tea industry will formulate a code of self-discipline for the industry to guide the market by the end of this month, he said. 

Meanwhile, the soaring prices benefit the tea industrial chain, in which farmers can make a gross profit of 20%, tea factories can make 15% and dealers 100-200%, said Xi Zixiang, vice chairman of International Pu'er Tea Association. 

But he said tea shops might be the biggest potential victims of the rampant speculation. 

"Tea shops are like small investors who usually face the biggest investment risks in the speculative boom since their customers are tea drinkers, most of whom are price-sensitive, and there are a variety of choices for them to choose," he said. 

What goes up must come down, and this truism applies to tea. The Pu'er market saw its price drop 10-50% this month. 

A shop owner named Gao on Boyuan Road in Guangzhou complained that after her shop bought a carton of Pu'er tea for 3,000 yuan last month, its price dropped by several hundred yuan in slightly more than 30 days. 

Among the victims was a middle-aged man surnamed Zhang, who spent 400,000 yuan on Pu'er tea early last month. "The price went up a bit after a brief fall in mid-May. Then the prices kept going down. Now the stock is worth only 288,000 yuan," he said. 

"Never, ever believe any of the so-called insiders. One has to equip himself with knowledge about the tea before making an investment. Otherwise, someone like me is forced to be a collector," he said. 

In this tea-market mini-crash, the hardest-hit area is Guangzhou, where speculation on Pu'er tea outstripped stocks and property in the past four months. 

A senior manager surnamed Chen at a Guangzhou tea-trading company said there is a price but no buyers in the Pu'er tea market now. 

"The crash was caused by tea shops that began buying up large stocks estimated to reach more than 100,000 tonnes and hoarding them. That put part of them out in the market due to cash-flow problems," she said. 

"Besides, the stock market has recouped the losses during the sharp correction starting late May after the central government tripled the tax on shares transactions. Thus liquidity is flowing back into the stock market, so the price of Pu'er started to fall," she said. 

Others said some dealers who have faced the increasing costs put their stocks back on the market to protest the unreasonable price rise. 

Newslinks (24.06.2007)

Tea in China costs six times as much as gold

By David Eimer in Beijing

Last Updated: 12:30AM BST 24/06/2007

China's stock market may be booming and its house prices soaring, but the hottest investment in the country today comes in the shape of a small, compressed cake that smells vaguely earthy and is wrapped in paper.

Pu'er tea, a strong, aromatic brew from the remote south-western province of Yunnan, has long been prized in China for its medicinal qualities. Now, instead of drinking it, millions of Chinese are hoarding it after the price jumped 50 per cent last year.

Like fine wine, Pu'er tea is considered to improve as it ages. In 2005, 500g of 64-year-old Pu'er tea sold at auction for one million yuan (£66,300) - making it six times more expensive than gold.

The price has been rising since 2003, when investors in southern China and Hong Kong realised that, with a limited amount of tea grown each year, they could drive up its price by storing the tea rather than selling it.

Three weeks ago, an earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale hit the Pu'er tea-growing region, prompting fears of a shortage and causing a sharp increase in the price of the most recently produced tea - which, because of the lengthy fermentation process, might have been harvested up to two years ago.

At the Maliandao Tea Market in south-west Beijing, Pu'er is sold in 350g cakes which the vendors handle as gingerly as if they were rare antiques.

"The price of new tea has gone up 30 to 50 per cent since the earthquake," said Liu Na of the Che Yun Shan Tea Company.

A cake of two-year-old Ye Sheng Gucha tea costs 260 yuan (about £18), while the 13-year-old tea sells for 1,800 yuan. "It'll double in price in two years," said Mrs Liu.

Such returns are irresistible to a people in the grip of a speculating frenzy. Traditionally, the Chinese are savers, not spenders. But in April and May savings declined for the first time in four years, according to the People's Bank of China, as people sought to cash in on the stock and property markets.

Pu'er tea is seen by some as an even more attractive option.

"You don't have to pay tax when you sell your Pu'er tea," said Mrs Liu.

The red-coloured tea has a distinctive taste, much stronger than green tea. In the Huangshan Feng Tea Shop, the owner, Zhang Sheng Qin, held up a glass and swirled it around. "Good Pu'er tea should be transparent," she said.

"It's good for people who want to lose weight," she added. "Are there a lot of fat people in England? Maybe we can do some business."

Newslinks (12.09.2006)

The rewards of a 'drinkable antique'

By Ann Mah Published: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2006, International Herald Tribune

BEIJING: Five years ago, Yang Chunyan had never tasted pu'er tea. But after just one sip of the smooth, dark brew, the Beijing native was hooked. Now, Yang has opened the Aromatic Pu'er Tea House, a tiny shop located on Gulou Dong Dajie, a busy street in the center of town. "Lots of people are interested," she said. "In Beijing, pu'er tea is starting to become a trend."

Although tea drinking has been part of Chinese culture for 3,000 years, the capital's connoisseurs have only recently developed a craze for pu'er, a special aged tea indigenous to Yunnan Province in the southwest. Like vintage wine, pu'er, which is stored in compressed cakes, mellows over time, and its value appreciates. In China's supercharged economy, where no investment opportunity goes unnoticed, pu'er's popularity has sparked a wave of collectors, many of whom see the tea as a worthy speculation.

"Tea never goes bad, so it's a good investment," said Ji Xiaofeng, who manages a stall at Maliandao, Beijing's wholesale tea market. Last year, 500 grams of tea, or about 17 ½ ounces, preserved since the 1940s sold at auction for 1 million yuan, or about $125,000, he said. More modest investors can expect new tea, which sells for about 2,000 yuan per kilo, to double in value in five years.

"If you invest in the stock market, you might lose every penny. But if you invest in pu'er, it will only go up," Yang Chang, a pu'er tea collector based in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, said in a telephone interview. "This is a good, low-risk way to earn money."

Prized for its earthy, rich flavor, pu'er is a large-leafed tea gathered from centuries-old trees that thrive in Yunnan Province's changeable climate and acidic soil. After the leaves are harvested, they undergo a traditional process of compression and fermentation, which brings out the tea's particular qualities. "It has a special mildewy scent," said Shi Zongkai, a Tsinghua University professor and pu'er tea enthusiast. Some believe this mildew, which accumulates as the tea ferments, has unique health benefits, including weight loss, he added.

Chang, who has collected pu'er for more than 30 years, has spent two decades researching the tea's purported medicinal properties at the Yunnan Kunming Miao Xiang Research Center.

His studies examine the effects pu'er may have on lowering cholesterol and preventing cancer. "This is my life's work," he said. Yang said these perceived medicinal qualities have contributed to pu'er's recent increased popularity. Pu'er has long been celebrated as a folk remedy, he said, adding, "Now, people care more about their health than ever before."

Though pu'er tea collectors abound in southern China, particularly Hong Kong, Taiwan and Yunnan, tea companies have only recently started to promote their product to northern Chinese consumers. Four years ago, the Yunnan provincial government sponsored a pu'er advertising campaign in the capital to promote the brew's health benefits.

Last year, Zhang Guoli, a popular Chinese actor and director, arranged for a horse caravan to travel a historic route from Yunnan to Beijing, while carrying a precious load of tea. The arduous six-month journey, which gave the tea time to ferment in the traditional manner, was widely covered in the local media. "It really introduced pu'er tea to most Beijingers," said Yang Chunyan, the tea house owner.

Pu'er's new popularity has had an impact at Beijing's Maliandao tea street market, where a two-story building filled with stalls dedicated solely to pu'er opened last year.

In another neighborhood, Yang Chunyan's pu'er tea shop has seen a small but steady flow of customers since it opened in April, and she is confident that people are becoming more interested in her product. "Southerners have collected pu'er for 20, 30 years, but many northerners still don't understand it," she said. She offers tea tastings to novice enthusiasts, educating them on the characteristics of fine leaves. "Pu'er is a drinkable antique," she said. "I love the culture of this tea, and I am thrilled to introduce it to others."

Shi, who discovered pu'er during a two-year stint working in Yunnan Province, enjoys comparing tea from different years of production. "Pu'er from the '70s, '80s, '90s, they all taste different," he said. "It's like comparing wines from France, California, Australia."

Yang Chunyan is one connoisseur who does not collect the tea, despite her passion for it. "I just like the taste," she said. "Collecting it is too expensive."

From his stall at the wholesale tea market, Ji Xiaofeng said that pu'er prices have skyrocketed in recent years. "If you have money, you can participate in the auctions," he said. "But recently, it's been more difficult to find aged tea, and there have been fewer pu'er auctions."

Chunyan agreed. "Auctions are very scarce these days," she said. "And the people who participate are rarely pu'er experts. I don't even know if they drink the tea."

For some, however, aged pu'er is not the best. Yang Chang, who is known as a pu'er expert, prefers young tea - about two or three years old - as it is "the best for your health," he said. "Tea that is 20, 30, 40 years old has lost all of its valuable elements," he added. "Besides, it's becoming too hard to find."

In fact, the recent demand for aged pu'er has led to an increase in fake tea - pirated pu'er - that some purveyors try to pass off as vintage. Tea producers have developed a way to accelerate the fermentation process, which results in a weak-flavored brew, Shi said. "Most people prefer naturally fermented tea, and the prices reflect this,' he said.

It is a combination of flavor and culture that keeps pu'er lovers brewing fresh pots of tea. "I like the taste, the health benefits, the cultural experience of drinking it," Shi said. "When I make a cup of pu'er, it reminds me of my time in Yunnan Province. I can taste the history of the tea, the age of it. This experience is not possible with any other kind of tea."

Newslinks (21.04.2008)

A Tea From the Jungle Enriches a Placid Village

by Thomas Fuller 

published April 21, 2008 The New York Times

PU’ER, China — The sky is nearly cloudless, the breeze is bracing, and the tea plantation where Yao Kunxue works resembles a giant green amphitheater absorbing the last rays of a setting sun.

The tea itself? No thanks, he says. He grows it — what he calls industrial tea — but he does not drink it.

The rolling hills of China’s southern Yunnan Province are the birthplace of tea, anthropologists say, the first area where humans figured out that eating tea leaves or brewing a cup could be pleasant. Today tea farmers preside over large plantations, but they want their tea the way their forebears consumed it: brewed from wild leaves, and preferably from ancient trees in the jungle.

“It has a fragrant smell,” Mr. Yao said of his favorite, harvested from trees at least a century old. “And when you swallow there’s a sweet aftertaste.”

From relative obscurity a few decades ago, tea from Yunnan, especially Pu’er, has become a fashionable, must-have variety in the tea shops of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. Surging demand for Pu’er — often advertised as wild tea even if it is from the plantations — has made farmers here rich and encouraged entrepreneurs to carve out more plantations from jungle-covered hillsides.

Ninety percent of the 23,000 tons of Pu’er tea produced last year was grown on plantations, officials say. Local residents seem more than happy to send it to distant locales. They complain about its hard edges — too bitter — and the chemicals that are regularly sprayed on the plants to repel bugs, viruses and fungus.

“The pesticides come through in the taste,” Mr. Yao said.

Here, tea has never been something bought at the market; it grows in the backyard, like blueberries in the woods of Maine.

Domesticated tea plants are trimmed into hedges to make harvesting easier. In the wild, they grow to resemble the old and gnarled olive trees of the Mediterranean but with bigger and more abundant leaves.

Peng Zhe, deputy secretary general of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, a tea-growing district here, compares the wild tea to fine vintages of Bordeaux or Burgundy.

“To appreciate Pu’er tea is similar to enjoying wine,” said Mr. Peng, who also leads the local tea promotion board. “You need to understand the different areas where tea grows. The fragrance is different from one mountain to the next.”

Jungle tea, as some here call the harvest from wild tea trees in more remote areas, has been picked by villagers for centuries, and in imperial times it was sent to the emperor. But only recently have the profits started rolling in for the wild-tea pickers, who have divided forests of tea trees along ancestral lines and are increasingly selling to larger concerns.

“Twenty years ago no one had the idea that tea could become so valuable,” said Chen Jinqiang, an official in Xishuangbanna.

A compressed disc of Pu’er tea that sold for 3 yuan, or about 40 cents, two decades ago now can easily go for 200 yuan, about $25, today, Mr. Chen said.

“People here always had enough to eat,” he said. “Now they have a lot of cash.”

In Manmai, a hilltop village a few dozen miles from China’s border with Myanmar, the wealth from the Pu’er tea boom is trickling down. The village headman, Zha Pagu, has never traveled more than 30 miles from his house during his 60-plus years (he said he could not remember his exact age), but his home now has a solar water heater, and his neighbors are upgrading their wood and thatch homes with modern building materials like tiles and concrete.

Until recently the village was accessible only by foot. A dirt road that winds up the mountain is now under construction, but the village remains relatively isolated.

Zha Ge, 19, a tea picker who like the other villagers is Lahu, a small ethnic minority here, said he had never met a foreigner before. But he understands the value of outsiders’ keen interest in his tea trees. Picking tea has generated enough cash to buy a 20-inch television, a motorcycle and a copy of his favorite foreign film, “First Blood,” the first in the Rambo series.

In March and April, the peak tea-plucking season, Mr. Zha Ge can make up to $1,000 a month, far more than what the factory workers in eastern Chinese cities make stitching blue jeans and assembling iPods.

Unlike those workers, who live in smog-choked cities with blackened, polluted waterways, the tea pickers here work among trees that overlook a pristine mountain range that would not look out of place in a Chinese scroll painting. In October, when the tea trees flower, the air is filled with the sweet aroma of tea blossoms. “It smells just like honey,” Mr. Zha Ge said.

Teenage girls are the most sought-after tea pickers — their fingers move more quickly, local residents say — and they can harvest as much as 110 pounds of tea leaves a day.

Yet for many families in the remote reaches of Yunnan, tea-picking remains outside the realm of commerce. It is so tightly intertwined with their daily lives that it is a routine household chore, like putting the laundry out to dry.

Yue Ye, 38, the mother of two teenagers in Chui Hao, a village inhabited by members of the Dai ethnic group, says children begin drinking tea when they are 3 to 5 years old. Families consume it first thing in the morning, after lunch, after dinner and late in the evening.

They pick the tea from ancient trees atop a hill near the village. “The people who planted them are long dead,” Ms. Yue said.

She cooks the leaves in a wok, “massages” them by hand and leaves them in the sun for a day.

Tea from Pu’er was popular around the region in ancient times: historians describe “horse tea trails” that radiated from Pu’er, the main trading center for the tea, into northern and eastern China, Tibet and beyond.

The recent surge in popularity is attributed to newly affluent, health-conscious Chinese who believe that Pu’er tea lowers cholesterol, cures hangovers, helps fortify teeth and trims away fat.

Shops in Beijing or Shanghai advertise that their Pu’er tea has been aged for several decades, which is said to give the tea a more mellow taste. But as with many things in China it is hard to tell the real from the counterfeit.

Mr. Chen, the government official, said he would be very wary of claims that tea has been aged more than 10 years. “Most of it is fake, I think,” he said.

Nopporn Phasaphong, a tea trader in Bangkok whose family has been in the business for three generations and who travels regularly to Pu’er, says she, too, is skeptical about the authenticity of much of what is labeled jungle tea from Pu’er. Very little genuine jungle tea is on the market, she says. “Everyone who sells it will tell you it comes from old trees,” she said. “But it’s like buying rubies. You have to know something about it.”

Mr. Yao says he can taste the difference between teas grown on plantations and those from wild trees. But in what may be a metaphor for freewheeling China today, he acknowledges that nonconnoisseurs often get hoodwinked.

“If you don’t know Pu’er tea,” he said, “people will cheat you.”

Brief History and background of Pu-Er

INTRODUCTION

We have read through many literature including both Chinese and English and found many differences in what was being recorded. It is true that many English translations were made from Chinese books and such translations may have misinterpreted certain crucial aspects of the background of pu-er. We attempted to gather as much information as possible from various sources and to summarize the history of pu-er as accurately as possible. Though we must say, there are still some ambiguous points to what we understand. However, this can be use as a very brief summary of the general history of the sought after tea, Pu-Er.

THE ANCIENT TEA HORSES

PU-ER is a county in the south western part of China and Pu-Er tea originated from Yunnan province is a large leaf tea. Pu-er tea is thus named after its origins. There are no confirmed records but it is believed that pu-er tea existed for more than 2200 years. It was already admired and drank by noblemen a long long time ago. During the early years of Tang Dynasty, horses were used to transport tea from Yunnan along the "old tea horse roads" in caravans. Many traders flocked Pu-Er to acquire the tea and horses were also used to travel on the "tea horse roads" to send their goods back to Vietnam, Tibet, etc. Pu-er was traded as currencies and horses were the main form of transportation then up until the Ming and Qing dynasty when there were at least 5 main "tea highways".

Such highways linked Pu-Er to as far as Thailand and Malaysia in the south while extending its length to Beijing in the north and from the east to the west linking Pu-Er to Nepal. Such great distances required long journey time as horse caravans travelled at a very slow pace. Traders needed to maximized their transporting time and space which led them to think of compressing the tea for easier handling and transportation. However, it was coincidental that the traders discovered that the tea gave a better taste at the destination after the long haul journey. It was then the traders started to learn that the tea leaves begin to ferment during the journey which produces a strong unique aroma which appeals to tea drinkers. The fermentation process was then developed to imitate the natural fermentation process during the long journey.

DISTINCTIVE PU-ER TASTE

The artificial fermentation of Pu-er tea is aimed to accelerate the aging process to oxidize the tea leaves at a greater pace to achieve the appealing pu-er taste. Generally, raw pu-er requires a minimum of 10 years to mature giving a smoother and better taste. The longer the raw pu-er is kept the better. However, the taste of the pu-er depend highly on the keeping process as well. 

PU-ER NOW

The hype of current collecting and trading of pu-er tea started only in the 80s and the market value of pu-er tea can escalate exponentially for very rare and hard-to-get pu-er. Such hype started in the southern part of China and extended globally.

Pu-Er Tea Daily Market Prices

Pu-Er tea is being traded daily and prices fluctuate depending on the type of tea, the quality of the tea, the age of the tea as well as the producing plant where the tea is originated. All these factors contribute to the fluctuation of the demand for the tea. Daily indicative prices can be obtained from the following site: www.puer001.com